Built as a central battery ironclad by the Thames Iron Works & Shipbuilding Co. in Blackwall on the River Thames for the Turkish Ottoman Empire.
1865 Keel laid down under the name FATIKH.
On the stocks bought by the Prussian Navy and renamed WILHELM I.
25 April 1868 launched.
Tonnage 5,085 grt, 2,822 net, displacement 9,757 ton. Dim. 112.2 x 18.3 x 8.56m (maximum draught), length on waterline 108,6m.
Powered by one horizontal single expansion 2-cyl. steam engine, 8,4440 ihp., one shaft, speed 14 knots.
Bunker capacity 750 ton coal, range by a speed of 10 knots, 1,300 mile.
Ship rigged.
Armament: 18 – 240mm., 5 – 210mm guns.
Crew 730.
20 February 1869 completed under the name KÖNING WILHELM.
She was for a time the largest and most powerful warship in the Prussian Navy.
During the France-Prussian War in 1870-1871 served as flagship. But due to engine trouble she took not part in any action during that war.
31 May 1878 off Folkestone during fleet manoeuvres she rammed and sank the German warship GROSSER KURFÜRST with great loss of life.
In 1890 her armament consisted of 17 -240mm, 7 – 150mm, 4 – 80mm guns, 6 – 37mm automatic canons and 5 – 350mm torpedo tubes placed above water.
Between 1895 and 1896 converted into an armoured cruiser by Blohm & Voss in Hamburg,
Ship rig reduced to two military masts with fighting tops and a small mizzen mast.
Armament: 17 – 240mm, 1 – 150mm, 16 – 88mm guns, 5 – 350mm torpedo tubes.
However she had been superseded by newer vessels and in May 1904 placed out of active service.
Then used as a floating barrack and training ship at Kiel, Flensburg and Mürwick.
1921 sold for scrap after a career spanning 52 years.
Guinea 1997 250f sg1741 (given wrongly by Stanley Gibbons as KAISER WILHELM), scott1397. On stamp is given ROI GUILAUME.
Source: Conway’s All the World’s Fighting Ships 1860-1905. Wikipedia.
KONING WILHELM
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D. v. Nieuwenhuijzen
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